


games of skill and chance

by village_skeptic



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV), All Souls Trilogy - Deborah Harkness
Genre: Belle Epoque, F/M, Gambling, M/M, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-11 00:21:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18671389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/village_skeptic/pseuds/village_skeptic
Summary: "Monte Carlo may be a place of unlimited pleasures, but the lady’s favors are not up for wager.”Matthew’s voice is smooth and dispassionate, but she can smell the spike in his adrenaline even from across the room. His eyes, bright and watchful, are fixed where they’ve been since the topic arose — on Domenico.How long had it been sinceshe’dcommanded his attention so entirely?In that moment, Juliette casts aside entirely any small private reservations she might have had about this plan.--Monte Carlo, 1891. The game’s no fun if you know what cards your partner is holding.





	games of skill and chance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dorian_burberrycanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dorian_burberrycanary/gifts).



> A slightly belated birthday gift for the always brilliant, very much beloved @burberrycanary. "Any rabbit hole, any time" — and this bunny just happened to be lying in wait, apparently.

“It is a palace of vice, Matthew, a gambling hell! The entire place overstimulates the animal senses and dulls the finer feelings. It is a factory for ennui and dissipation.” 

_The Prince of Monaco is certainly less than impressed with his own casino_ , Juliette thinks, suppressing the urge to raise an incredulous eyebrow. 

Despite the vivid complaints of His Serene Highness, the exquisitely-maintained grounds surrounding them hardly seemed like an inducement to bacchanalia – not that she found herself there in pursuit of pleasure, in any case.

During the previous summer, the Englishman William Wells’ mysterious run of luck at the Monte Carlo roulette tables had captured the public imagination, dominating newspaper headlines and popular gossip all across Europe. The Congregation had made a few discreet inquiries, and it turned out that “The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo” was actually a daemon with more taste for risk than common sense. 

When he’d turned up again at the resort that autumn, the Congregation had dispatched a delegation to Monte Carlo forthwith – first, to make it explicitly clear to Wells what dire consequences awaited if he continued to draw human attention, and second, to smooth over the ruffled feathers of the Société des Bains de Mer et du Cercle des Etrangers. Although the name evoked a shadowy conclave to rival the Congregation itself, the Société was in practical fact one man — Camille Blanc, the second-generation manager of the casino, who had been nervous about his sovereign’s antipathy towards his livelihood even before Wells’s spree.

Matthew de Clermont was the perfect envoy for the Congregation’s purposes — extremely persuasive, naturally diplomatic, and completely unintimidated by the prospect of rubbing shoulders with titles and crowned heads. In fact, he had for years carried on an enthusiastic correspondence with Prince Albert, who was both an ardent naturalist and aspiring social reformer. 

“Pardon my confusion, your Grace, but didn’t the Bishop of Monaco and then-Cardinal Pecci himself both invest in the venture?” Despite the polite phrasing of the question, the irony behind it was palpable. “Surely the man who then ascended to become our beloved Holy Father would not have associated himself with a project so utterly bereft of virtue.”

Conversely, Juliette has _no idea_ why the Congregation decided to send Domenico along. 

The look of irritation on the Prince’s face suggests that he is presently pondering the same question. “Make no mistake, _Signore_ Michele, we are grateful for the casino’s revenue, which has allowed us to make many beneficial social improvements to our country. Still, it is a regrettable temple to empty sensation and to mere novelty — to the compulsive pursuit of phantoms that melt into air.”

_Mere novelty._

Just over a hundred years after her rebirth, Juliette has begun to understand that the hunger for something new could at times outstrip the need for blood. And both her companions, she knows, have seen many more centuries dawn and fade.

All three vampires exchange a brief, wordless look of perfect understanding. 

“Anyway, there’s nothing insubstantial about the architecture,” says Matthew smoothly, after a beat. “They’re beautiful buildings — the Opera House particularly so.”

At the mention of his wife’s pet project, Prince Albert warms, and the conversation turns to her plans for the upcoming season, and then to his own recent scientific expeditions. But when he mentions a new deep-sea specimen that Matthew _simply must see_ , Juliette revolts. Curious though she might be about the ancient palace, she absolutely cannot endure another endless discourse in which he and Matthew talk about newly-discovered fish that mimicked rocks and old rocks that had supposedly once been fish.

Using her prettiest, frailest voice for the Prince’s benefit, she makes her excuses — _the heat of the sun this far south; her lamentable choice of shoes_. At first, Matthew gives her a fond, tolerant smile, but his expression turns to irritation when Domenico volunteers to escort her back to the Hôtel de Paris. 

However, she knows that there is no feasible objection that he can make in front of the Prince without complicating their diplomatic mission. Politesse dictates the lady’s comfort, and Domenico is _ostensibly_ a trusted associate.

Besides, the royal fish awaits. 

As she rises from her farewell curtsy, Juliette widens her eyes at Matthew and wrinkles her nose, just for a second, conveying that although she shares his displeasure with this development — _c’est la vie, c’est la guerre_. 

Matthew softens instantly, as she’d known he would, pressing a chaste, slightly distracted kiss to her temple as he leaves. She watches, turning like a sunflower, as they round a bend in the path and disappear from sight—

And then she is alone with Domenico Michele.  
  
  
  
  
  
“What news can I pass on to your father?” he asks, when they are safely out of earshot.

Quickly, she relates the few scraps of information she has gathered since the last time they’d met — the fact that Matthew and Baldwin had met in London; the general substance of a letter from Sept-Tours that she’d managed to read before Matthew burned it. 

“And what of the Knights of Lazarus?”

There it is, the question that she always dreads, because the answer is always the same: nothing useful, nothing that Gerbert could not have already surmised from creature gossip and from his old connections in Rome.

Domenico shakes his head in an exaggerated semblance of disappointment. “Just as we’d feared. In that case, Juliette, your father has instructions for you.”

And in a few words, he sketches out a plan that makes her jaw drop in shock.

“You must be insane,” she says flatly, dropping his arm and stepping a few paces away. “You _honestly_ expect me to believe—”

He reaches out and catches her wrist, drawing her back.

“Believe it, Juliette,” he says, quite seriously. “Gerbert is getting impatient. You’ve spent the past century dressed in satins and silks, traipsing all over the Western world as the cosseted consort of Matthew de Clermont.” 

She can practically _see_ the sarcasm drip out of his mouth as he says Matthew’s name. 

“Meanwhile,” he continues, “your father has been sitting at home in Venice, mothballed in his palazzo, waiting for actionable information that somehow never seems to come.”

“First of all, absolutely _nothing_ about that description is fair or accurate—”

“It’s been a hundred years, Juliette, and if you don’t do anything to refresh Matthew’s interest, he _will_ get tired of you,” Domenico interjects, and her stomach twists at the mere thought. “Your window of opportunity is closing — unless you work to extend it.” 

His dark eyes hold her gaze, waiting for her answer, and she realizes that she has drawn far closer to him than is appropriate for midday in polite society, even here in the pleasure ground of Monte Carlo. 

His thumb brushes the strip of skin between her glove and her cuff.

Her pulse beats once, hard.

She rips her hand out of his grasp.

“Fine,” she hisses, “but Matthew finds you obnoxious beyond all surpassing. There is no chance that this plan will succeed.” 

Domenico laughs, flashing his white teeth. “Matthew does indeed find me obnoxious beyond all surpassing. And that, dear Juliette, is precisely why — with your cooperation — this plan _will_ succeed.”  
  
  
  
  
  
The clock on the mantelpiece chimes half-past midnight as Domenico fills his glass once more, and then pours the last of the bottle into Matthew’s glass, over his protests.

“Not at all, not at all, de Clermont, I insist — to acknowledge your hospitality, if nothing else.” He lifts his glass, indicating the splendor of their suite, before placing the empty bottle with several of its fellows on the service cart.  
  
  
  
In addition to their complimentary suites at the Hotel de Paris, Camille Blanc’s gratitude to the delegation had manifested itself in a private banquet and a generous sum of credits for use in the casino. After they dined together on fresh raw shellfish, heaping portions of steak tartare, and a platter of figs, dates, and pistachios grown on the palace grounds, Juliette had declared that they all must go try their luck at the tables. Matthew had politely played a few hands of _chemin de fer_ before passing his remaining markers over to her, with the comment that he was content to watch. She had played steadily for a half-hour or so thereafter, but then found herself suddenly cleaned out, along with several others, after a risky bet from a new punter with deep pockets. 

Just when Juliette thought that the night might possibly wind down uneventfully, Domenico reappeared, having tripled his own money at roulette. Rather than risk losing his stake, he had prudently cashed out — and then summoned the sommelier to bring a list of the oldest and most unusual bottles in the Monte Carlo cellars.

_“If you would care to advise, Matthew—?”_

They’d adjourned back to the hotel suite in order to enjoy the wines in a more private and comfortable environment. The gaming table there had begun as simply the most convenient surface to set out all the glasses required, but then Domenico had suggested whimsically that he and Matthew might draw high card for the privilege of choosing the next bottle to be opened. 

Several hours had passed this way, and Juliette had been surprised at how easily conversation had flowed between the two men. Discussion about the quality and history of the wines was interwoven with amusing anecdotes, bits of Congregation gossip, and reminiscences involving mutual acquaintances who had lived and died hundreds of years before she had been born the first time.  
  
  
  
Now, Matthew holds up the deck and motions to the selection of bottles still remaining — but this time, Domenico merely smiles in response. 

“Shall we raise the wager? One night with the beautiful Juliette.”

The relaxed good humor drains from Matthew’s face in an instant. 

“Bad form, Domenico.”

“Oh come off it, Matthew. In fourteen hundred years of pious works, I would have thought you’d learned the virtues of sharing. It’s not as if she’s your mate.”

Juliette’s heart gives a furious, agonized thump. _That bastard_. Of course, given half a chance, Domenico would find a way to throw her greatest failure in her face — to remind her that, after all this time, both the secrets of the Brotherhood and of Matthew’s heart still remained hidden to her.

“Nonetheless, I do not barter in women. Monte Carlo may be a place of unlimited pleasures, but the lady’s favors are not up for wager.”

Matthew’s voice is smooth and dispassionate, but she can smell the spike in his adrenaline even from across the room. His eyes, bright and watchful, are fixed where they’ve been since the topic arose — on Domenico. 

How long had it been since _she’d_ commanded his attention so entirely?

In that moment, she casts aside entirely any small private reservations she might have had about this plan.

(Later, she will think back and remember how Domenico had regarded Matthew in return: with a curious lack of fear.)

Now, however, she crosses to the gaming table. 

“ _The lady_ tires of being the passive object of this conversation, and wishes to be dealt into the game.”

Although he quickly masks it, the look of surprise on Matthew’s face is a balm to her smarting pride. She savors it, holding his gaze even as the other man speaks.

“As if we could refuse you. Still — again, what shall we play for?”

“One of you called glibly for my virtue to be laid on the baize, and the other one declared me off-limits just as quickly,” she replies curtly. “Would you ante and bank yourselves with such lordly confidence, I wonder?”

The Venetian gives a low, delighted laugh, reaching for three short stacks of betting markers, and pushing them forward with a decisive ceramic _chink_. “Oh, Juliette. Immortality has taught me the folly of confidence — but also the wisdom of seizing opportunity where one finds it. I accept your charming wager, with pleasure.”

Domenico emphasizes those last two words like the reckless provocateur that he is, and then he actually smirks at Matthew in a way that makes her wonder how he hasn’t been found floating face-up and bloated in one of the minor canals several centuries ago. 

She dares a glance at Matthew, steeling herself for the look of barely-contained rage that she expects to see there. 

What she finds instead, though, might best be characterized as wary curiosity. 

“What the hell are you playing at, Juliette?” he murmurs softly, studying her face.

“ _Vingt-et-un_ , Matthew. Now will you deal the cards, or shall I?”  
  
  
  
  
  
She expects Domenico to lose quickly and deliberately, which he does, after betting everything on his first hand and choosing to stick with a grand total of seven points. But it’s Matthew’s erratic play that surprises her: he bets cautiously at first, but then calls _carte_ recklessly and goes bust on one hand, only to stick far too low on the next. 

He wins a few — a natural _vingt-un_ among them — but she still cleans him out in less than ten hands. 

“Regretting the decision to teach me how to count cards?” she asks coolly.

She doesn’t wait for his answer, but rises from the table, turning on her heel. Crossing to the doors of the adjoining bedroom and throwing them open with something rather more than invitation, she disappears inside.

Behind her, she can hear Domenico’s low chuckle.

“Well, Matthew? Are we not gentlemen of our word?”  
  
  
  
  
  
Instead of listening to Matthew’s response and whatever reply might follow, she focuses on locating and then dimming each of the lamps dispersed around the bedroom. 

Whatever was about to happen here, she had no intention of it unfolding in a room lit up like midday. 

It is altogether too long and too short a time before the discussion in the other room ceases, and two sets of footsteps approach. Domenico enters first, and Matthew follows a few steps behind, with a fresh bottle of wine and a corkscrew, a single glass, and a dark expression.

“Chivalry may be dead, Juliette, but my lance is at your disposal — although I can’t vouch for my brother knight over there.” 

Domenico gestures to Matthew, who ignores both of them completely in favor of the delicate operation of levering the cork out of its bottle. Carefully, he pours a small amount into the glass before holding it up in the dim light and swirling it, studying the color with the utmost concentration.

Juliette had expected harsh words from Matthew at the very least, perhaps even violence exchanged between the two men. But she hadn’t anticipated this _imperturbable bloody calm_.

She smooths her gown, pointedly, and then turns her back on them both. 

“It unfastens in the back. You should start at the top and work your way down.”

“What a novel experience this will be for you, Domenico,” says Matthew, with deceptive blandness. “You’ve generally preferred to work your way up, isn’t that right?” 

Domenico’s fingers stiffen for a moment as he begins to fumble with the hooks on her bodice, and despite her anger, Juliette entirely fails to bite back a smirk.

She had come to look forward to the regular Congregation meetings — more specifically, to their aftermath, which often featured Matthew’s entertainingly vicious tirades about the Venetian’s elaborate schemes for personal advancement, and his complete lack of both principles and shame.

“ _And of course_ ,” she now remembered him saying once, “ _the only ones there worse than Domenico are everyone else_.”

She sneaks a sidelong glance at Matthew, who has moved on from aerating the wine to what appears to be an impossibly thorough examination of the cork.

 _Completely, utterly unacceptable_.

Domenico unfastens the final hook and eye at the waist of her gown _en princesse_ , and she shrugs it down to the floor, stepping out of its billows like Venus emerging from the sea.

“Pick it up, Matthew, please,” she directs, coolly. “That gown cost 250 francs and there’s no one outside of Paris who can press it correctly.” 

Matthew gives her an incredulous look — but then, amazingly, he acquiesces, picking up the gown, folding it almost tenderly, and placing it in her trunk across the room.

He stays there, at a distance, leaning against the ornate marble mantelpiece.

But at least he’s watching her now.  
  
  
  
  
  
Piece by piece and with Domenico’s occasional assistance, she sheds her petticoat, drawers, stockings, and corset, until she’s left standing only in her chemise. Then, she turns to face the first man in a hundred years other than Matthew to see her in this profound a state of _déshabillé_. 

“Your move, Juliette,” Domenico whispers, eyes dark with amused anticipation, and _my God_ , she thinks, _does the man_ ever _tire of playing at puppetmaster_? 

He’s succeeded at stripping her down at her own apparent direction, but she resolves: tonight she _will_ lay bare whatever he keeps hidden under that smug façade. 

So without further prelude, she kisses him, hard and messy, licking into his soft startled mouth to taste his reaction directly. The loud-bright topnote of shock blends with the deeper, sweeter flavor of lust, flooding across her tongue, calling forth her own tangled hungers. 

He jerks in instinctive surprise, and her teeth just barely graze his lower lip. She chases the movement, flicking her tongue there to survey the damage, and _oh_ , the shared flavor of desire suddenly gets so much more intense as she does. 

It’s not his blood she tastes there so much as it is something like power, and _yes good this yes more_ —

Domenico pulls back swiftly, tilting her chin up and safely away from him with one firm hand. He ducks his head to press a single kiss just above the lace trim of her chemise, right over her heart, and then mouths a slow, deliberate line up the length of her neck. 

The threat is clear enough. 

Still, it’s the intentional, focused delicacy of his motions that her body responds to, and the low timbre of delight in his voice as he murmurs, “There, now. Do we understand each other, Juliette?” 

His lips brush her ear, and she shivers with something that should have been revulsion, but they both know it isn’t.

 _And the truly awful fact_ , she thinks, _is that yes, we do_.  
  
  
  
  
  
Domenico sheds his clothes —a much shorter process, one of the many galling disparities of this age — and then sits on the low bench at the foot of the ornately-carved bed. He draws her down onto his lap, settling her back against his chest with her legs draped over his, so that her full weight leans back against him. 

The intimacy of the position is shocking — it’s almost like being cradled, skin-to-skin, and the sensation is oddly soothing.

That is, until Domenico pushes his own knees apart, laying her bare to Matthew’s reluctant regard.

“Wide open, so he can see you,” Domenico whispers softly in her ear, before dipping his hand between her legs.  
  
  
  
She has been acquainted with Domenico Michele for practically as long as she can recall — certainly longer than she’s known Matthew. In her earliest memories of the years after her rebirth, Domenico is a pair of dark eyes glittering at the margins of her father’s private gatherings. Over the years, she has come to know him better and, consequently, to like him less, even as she admits a begrudging respect for the ruthless skill with which he engages in the game of politics and diplomacy.

But in all that time, she has never seen him with a woman.

She’d asked Matthew about it once, during a particularly voluble bout of post-Congregation ranting. She’d thought her question — half arch insinuation, half genuine curiosity — would please him, eliciting a flood of juicy gossip from the past. To her surprise, however, his eyes had turned black and cold. 

“It doesn’t even bear discussion,” he’d said curtly, and that had been that. 

No matter.  
  
  
  
She’d been prepared to play the actress, putting on a whorish show for the purpose of arousing Matthew’s jealousy, but it was rapidly becoming clear to Juliette that, somewhere in his thousand or more years of immortal life, Domenico had in fact learned how to please a woman. 

Canny and watchful in this as in everything else, he’d touched her carefully, stroking here and now there, brushing her clit with a soft purpose that teased without satisfying, then retreating to slide just a fingertip inside her, pressing and circling only briefly before withdrawing again. And after several minutes of this slow, deliberate coaxing, there is nothing sham about her impatience.

“God’s wounds, de Clermont, it’s as if she hasn’t had a seeing-to in months. Has Congregation business kept you that busy? Or is it that your commitments _outside_ the Congregation have interfered with your performance of more intimate duties?”

As God is her witness, she loathes Domenico Michele with every fiber of her being. 

Except, apparently, the ones between her legs. 

Matthew says nothing in reply, but his hand tightens on his wine glass. She can see the small vein beneath his eye pulsing from here, and something low in her stomach flutters in response.

She should probably be afraid — after all, she can smell the waves of anger and arousal pouring off of him, distinct from her own scent of desire. And she certainly should feel humiliated, at best a collaborator and at worst a prop in this tawdry performance.

But oh, for once, Matthew’s eyes are fixed on her with the same unblinking, rapt intensity that he normally reserves for the laboratory or the chapel or the hunt.

And so, in this moment at least, she feels nothing short of _invincible_.

Domenico’s thumb rubs a little harder over her clit and she can’t help it — she lets out a little gasp, digging her nails into his thigh.

“Oh, is that it? No, don’t be quiet, sweetheart, let him hear you enjoying yourself.”

He does it again, and again, until she’s squirming against him, rocking her hips up to meet his hand, and all these motions start to blur together into one steady, relentless swell of pleasure.

But here, caught fast on the searing brink, she can’t ignore the fact that Matthew’s mere attention isn’t nearly enough for what she needs. His eyes are still locked on her, but that motionless regard suddenly feels like a terrifyingly distant remove.

She is so, so close and Matthew is still too far away.

 _Like always_.

But she doesn’t want to — she _can’t_ — not without —

“Matthew, _please_ ,” she whispers, and closes her eyes before he can see the expression there.

A vicious oath in Occitan and the sound of a wine glass shattering, and then Matthew is kneeling before her, between her legs, pushing the other man’s hand out of the way roughly before replacing it with his mouth, and _oh finally, finally_ —

She dimly registers Domenico clucking his tongue softly, mockingly — _for shame, Templar; greed is a mortal sin, you know_ — but then he lowers his mouth to hers, capturing the tip of her tongue between his lips just as Matthew does something very similar lower on her body. 

Ultimately, then, it’s that mirrored sensation, refracted and magnified, that finally pushes her over the edge, and two pairs of hands hold her in place while she shudders and trembles through her pleasure.  
  
  
  
  
  
Gradually, she comes back to herself. 

Gaslight flickers in the etched sconces that flank the mantelpiece, and the dim sound of ocean surf drifts in from the open window.

She can feel the rasp of Domenico’s beard against the nape of her neck, his face buried in her hair for some reason, and his own arousal still pressed against the swell of her hips. But for now, his hand rests simply on her flank, moving in slow unhurried sweeps. 

And then there is Matthew, sprawled carelessly back on the polished tile, looking up at her with his mouth and chin all glossy, and oh, what that does to her even now —

“Are those spoils enough for the victor, Juliette?” he asks coolly.

And maybe they should have been.

But what kind of winnings were they, balanced against nearly a hundred years of fruitless effort towards gaining Matthew’s ultimate trust? Of a century of constant struggle even to stay upright under the dead weight of so many different, conflicting plans resting on her shoulders?

For that matter, how could they possibly begin to balance the events of even this last hour, in which she had borne the humiliation of pleading for his touch?

And so, lifting her chin, she raises herself up, shifts back, and then sinks with agonizing slowness down onto Domenico’s cock, holding Matthew’s gaze all the while.  
  
  
  
  
  
For once, she gets the reaction that she wants.

She’s not even fully seated before Matthew surges to his knees and fits his mouth to her own, and whatever hazy concept of retribution she had been formulating dissolves in the face of this abject and terrible need that she feels for him. 

A wild, giddy joy rises in her, as she finds her pace and Matthew continues to move with her, chasing her mouth as she rises and falls. His hands find her breasts, stroking and pinching them not-quite-gently in the way that he knows she likes best, coaxing little sounds from her mouth that he swallows whole.

 _And, oh, here was insult added to injury, somehow transmuted to ecstasy; this, yes, this is what she had wanted_ —

She tangles her hands in his hair and pulls for the sheer delight of it, until he holds her wrists in one hand and lowers his mouth to her neck.

When Domenico had kissed her there softly earlier, it had been an elaborate parody of seduction, a display of faux-gentleness simply to prove that he could cause her real damage if he wanted to. But there is nothing but brutal sincerity in the barely-leashed force with which Matthew touches her now, no falsehood in these biting kisses that make her whine and arch into his touch, but which she knows will merely bruise the skin without breaking it.

She has been battering herself against his iron-clad self-control for so, so long. 

And so maybe that’s why she tilts her head away further, exposing her neck in an unmistakable invitation, and taunts him.

“Come on, Matthew, go ahead. Aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to _know_ what he feels like inside me?” 

He freezes and draws back from her, and awful as it is, the very fact of his reaction makes her flush with pleasure, even as she regrets her impulse to goad him. 

Domenico’s hands tighten warningly on her hips, but she is far too familiar with the lines that Matthew refuses to cross with himself. No matter how far she pushes him, she knows she doesn’t have to fear the searing pain of his teeth in her neck.

But for all that hard-won knowledge, she cannot interpret the look that he trains on her now. 

She’s bracing herself for whatever cutting reply he’s preparing to deliver, when Domenico interrupts.

“For God’s sake, Matthew, stop sitting there like the lazy aristocrat you are, and do something to help the woman out.”

Quick as a snake, he grabs Matthew’s hand, bringing his fingertips to where she is most sensitive, and the feeling and knowledge of both of them stroking her there soon has her quivering on the brink.

And then she feels Matthew’s hand drift away, further down to where she and Domenico are joined, and then lower still —

Domenico tenses, curses, and she can feel the abrupt flood of warmth within her.

Matthew smiles at her, broad and warm and cruel.  
  
  
  
  
  
He’d lifted her straight up and tossed her down on the bed with no pretense of gentleness; but in fairness, she’d dug her nails into his flesh the moment he touched her, and she’d been reaching for him before he even moved. She is still reaching out for him now, frantic, cursing the delay as he fumbles with buttons and fastenings and then _at last_ he pushes inside her and she can breathe again.

She would give him anything — _her mouth her breath her blood_ — but Matthew holds himself back, watching her face as he moves within her. His eyes are so black this close to hers, a dark void with only the thinnest sliver of blue ringing them. 

It is the kind of darkness, she thinks, into which she could maybe disappear forever, slipping away and leaving behind all this paralyzing love and hatred and need that she has for him; this hunger that was never her choice, but that has come to mark the boundaries of her life nevertheless.

Juliette isn’t stupid. She knows that this relationship will almost certainly end with one of them dead. 

Sometimes she even hopes it’s her.

But in the meantime, there is a type of safety in this violence she’s unleashed within him, and so she urges him on, echoing his motions with her own, drawing him deeper within herself.  
  
  
  
The bed dips, as Domenico comes to sit beside them. And because _of course_ he doesn’t know when to leave well enough alone, he reaches out one finger, tracing her cheek gently. 

Matthew actually _snarls_ , and she closes her eyes in pleasure at the sound.

“Always, _always_ so possessive,” Domenico murmurs, and there’s _something_ in his voice —

Her eyes fly open just in time to see Matthew reach up with one hand and pull Domenico down, wholly without resistance, into an exasperated, deliberate, open-mouthed kiss.  
  
  
  
Of the three creatures in the room, Juliette is by far the physically weakest. So she shouldn’t be able to flip Matthew onto his back, nor to pin him to the bed, not with the mere weight of her body and the force of her small hands on his shoulders.

But he lets her, staring up at her with those dark eyes and that unreadable expression. 

She rides him past the point of satisfaction and into exhaustion, chanting the same phrase over and over again, and when at last she collapses onto his chest, he echoes her words back to her, precisely, in his native French: 

“ _Oui, Juliette, tu m’appartiens_.”  
  
  
  
  
  
She sleeps.

(And if, in the middle of the night, she hears something that sounds like the furtive rustling of linens and the hiss of an indrawn breath, followed by a low, satisfied moan —

Surely it is the sea wind through palm fronds, and nothing more.)  
  
  
  
  
  
_Tink. Tink-tink._

Juliette wakes the next morning to sunlight streaming through the shutters and an empty bed. From across the room, a fully-dressed Domenico Michele watches her, and a small pile of betting markers sifts through his fingers, landing against the marble top of the dressing table. 

Matthew is nowhere to be seen. 

“He’s gone to make confession.” Domenico answers her unspoken question. “I pity the poor priest who has to perform the Holy Mass with that recitation still fresh in his ears.”

She wants to crawl back beneath the covers and sleep until she cannot remember any of this.

“Brilliant execution, Domenico,” she spits, instead. “That circus last night was supposed to bind Matthew closer to me, and instead it’s driven him straight into the arms of the Blessed Virgin. How could Gerbert have thought that this would work?”

Domenico glances down nonchalantly at the ivory token in his hand.

“I may have…embellished his instructions a bit.”

She’d thought as much. 

And yet she’d consented to participate in his charade — forced the game through another round, even — and why? 

She shies away from the question, redirecting all her self-recrimination into the brittle strength of anger, and there is absolute steel in her voice as she informs Domenico how completely and entirely she loathes him. 

“Very funny, Juliette, because that’s not at all what it seemed like last night with my fingers in your cunt,” he snaps, but then he closes his eyes for a moment, and the harsh Mediterranean sunshine illuminates something like exhaustion or regret. 

Matthew had left both of them that morning, she realizes.  
  
  
  
(Years later, floating through her father’s palazzo like a ghost wrapped in the depths of her grief, she would encounter Domenico for the first time since Matthew had abandoned her, and it would occur to her that there was perhaps one other creature in the world who might know something of what she was feeling.

The thought would almost, _almost_ help.

But not quite.)  
  
  
  
“Your father _is_ growing impatient, Juliette, and he did tell me to instruct you to make Matthew jealous.” Domenico’s voice is serious now, his customary mocking tone entirely absent. “The plan I supplied was… _creative_ , yes, but have some faith. By now you should know that, for Matthew, guilt like this is always a sign of some deeper process at work.” 

He opens his pocketwatch and checks the time, before closing it with a sharp, precise snap. “I have to go if I’m to make the train to Nice. The Congregation meets in Paris in two weeks’ time, and I’ll expect to hear from you then.”

Halfway through the door, he pauses, turning back for one final piece of counsel —

“In the meantime, do _try_ to be useful, Juliette.”  
  
  
  
  
  
She leaps off the bed, intending to — she has no idea, really; follow him? slap him? throw something at him? — but she makes it only a few steps before she is brought up short by a stabbing pain in the bottom of her foot. 

When she checks, she sees a piece of Matthew’s broken wine glass embedded there.

She sits on the low bench to remove the shard, and when she does, a few drops of her blood fall to the black marble floor.

 _How strange it is_ , she thinks, _that with all the events of the previous night, the only blood drawn should be accidental_. 

For a second, the room spins like a roulette wheel, and she closes her eyes and breathes deeply until it stops.

When she opens them, her gaze falls on Matthew’s open portmanteau and the sheaf of unread correspondence that she can just manage to see therein.

Through the window, she can hear the bells of the Church Saint-Charles tolling faintly, marking the start of Mass.  
  
  
  
  
  
Wrapping herself in a printed silk dressing gown, Juliette settles into a carved chair by the fireplace. She slides a fingernail under the black wax seal on the first of the letters, unfolds it carefully, and begins to read.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I know that Domenico's arrival at Sept-Tours in episode 4 is supposedly the first time that he and Matthew have seen each other in centuries. But I _much_ prefer the idea of them circling around each other for that whole time, with circumstances periodically throwing them together — sometimes they end up fighting on the same side, sometimes they end up fighting against each other, and then sometimes they end up on ridiculous obligatory work trips like this one. Your guess about what happened at Ferrara is as good as mine, but even in strict canon it feels debatable to what degree "truthful reminiscence" rates in Domenico's list of reasons to bring it up at that particular moment.
> 
> The framing events in this story are historically accurate — except for the part about William Wells being a daemon. Those of you who are familiar with _Lawrence of Arabia_ or _Alien: Covenant_ will recognize [ the famous song inspired by his winning streak](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gx1SWS1MFbU). Camille Blanc shouldn't have worried, though — all the hubbub about Wells served as great publicity, [and the casino saw record numbers of visitors (and profits) over the next years.](https://www.thehistorypress.co.uk/articles/the-monte-carlo-casino-from-empty-tables-to-a-magnet-for-millionaires/) If you're curious about what the resort was like in those years, an exceptionally detailed (and rather judgy) description of one man's sojourn in Monte Carlo [can be found here.](https://books.google.com/books?id=vNoLAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PP1&dq=twenty%20thousand%20miles%20of%20road%20travel%20in%20central%20and%20western%20europe&pg=PA232#v=onepage&q=twenty%20thousand%20miles%20of%20road%20travel%20in%20central%20and%20western%20europe&f=false)
> 
> Interestingly, [Prince Albert I](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_I,_Prince_of_Monaco) really did abhor the Monte Carlo casino, working hard to associate Monaco with art and science instead of gambling. In addition to being a noted oceanographer, the Prince also funded the turn-of-the-century archaeological explorations that led to the finding of ["Grimaldi Man"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimaldi_Man) (1901). Given their mutual interest in evolution, I like to picture him cabling Matthew excitedly to "drop everything and come visit RIGHT NOW."
> 
> Finally, comments and questions are always welcome, and you can find me on Tumblr at @village-skeptic. :D


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